Litchfield National Park

According to our guide book, the town of Batchelor was a 'major centre' with 'good shopping'. So we stopped to pick up our mail, which hadn't arrived, and buy food for the next four days. The 'town' had a little supermarket with huge prices. A few hundred dollars later we checked into the caravan park. There are bushfires burning almost every day nearby, and ash falling constantly.

We visited Buley Rockholes which was lots of fun- jumping into the deeper holes and climbing the small waterfalls. After lunch we drove to the Lost City, a collection of large rocks in the middle of the bush. Back at the caravan park we swam in the pool, where Archie managed to swim for the first time without his bubble. Yay Arch!



We then camped at Wangi Falls for two nights. It was lovely but very crowded with tourists. We had a rare moment of self directed creativity- Isaac and Darcy initiated painting seed pods and then invented a game to go with it. The kids spotted a Water Monitor- a big lizard, sunbaking on a rock. There were lots of noisy bats in the trees that flew about at night crashing into each other. Isaac explained about their echolocation. A Great Bower Bird had made its nest right near our campsite. It had categorised all the white things it collected- bones, shells, rocks and rubbish. The midges (tiny flies) at night were very bad and we all got bitten a lot. An abandoned tin mine was nearby which we went to, although the kids are a bit over mines unless they can climb into them. On the way to Berry Springs we looked at the enormous magnetic termite mounds.


A greenant nest- they use a sort of web to join leaves into a ball where they live.


Finally we spent two nights at Berry Springs. The thermal spring fed waterhole was lovely. Greg got bitten by lots of fish, even though they didn't bother the rest of us. We shopped for fruit and veg at a 'farm shop' which was a new experience for the kids. The caravan park we stayed at had pet freshwater crocodiles. It was a bit cooler in Berry Springs compared to Leliyn. Probably 32 rather than 35+, still a bit much though!

Back in the land of electricity and internet!! We haven’t bothered much keeping track of the date recently- in fact we often don’t even know what day it is. Life is that good!
After Mataranka we headed into Katherine where we found a Woolworths oasis- absolutely wonderful for getting the assorted dietary needs of the family met. Nitmiluk NP is near Katherine and jointly managed with the traditional owners, as with most parks in the NT. The caravan park we stayed in was near the gorge. The kids all swam off the jetty even though I was only mildly comforted by the crocodile trap nearby and the signs assuring visitors that they did check at the start of the dry for sneaky salties. Our family was the only one swimming though. Hmm. Anyway, limbs intact we climbed up to the lookout for a sunset view of the gorge- absolutely gorge-ous. Arch and Jess simultaneously scraped their knees on the way down. We have gone through three boxes of bandaids in the first three weeks.

After two days of relative luxury (electricity and tap water)we camped at Leliyn, also in Nitmiluk. As we hadn’t settled in the one spot for more than 2 nights since Flinders we decided to stay at Leliyn for 5 nights. This gave us a more relaxed pace each day rather than packing up/ driving/ setting up.
Archie has decided now to collect diseased leaves rather than rocks or emu feathers.
Each morning, when it is still cool, we try to start the day with Bible devotions followed by the kids writing in their journals. Then we do a bit of schoolwork. We even did some on a Sunday, much to boys’ disgust (never mind that they’d done almost nothing over the previous week!). Arch is working on sentence structure at the moment, and reading. Isaac and Darcy are doing a basic overview of the history of Australia, and poetry. The older boys tend to do stuff with me while Greg works with the littles. Usually by about 9.30am it is too hot to concentrate. Once we took the kids down to the waterhole and did schoolwork there. This also involved (Darcy’s idea) doing times tables where a wrong answer results in the child getting pushed into the water. As it was so hot there were lots of wrong answers.
One evening we took the kids down to the waterfall to paint the sunlight hitting the rocks as it set. Another day we hiked up to the top falls.
Jess walked the whole way, which is a huge improvement for her. She was told that if she wanted to swim she’d have to walk there. Her legs sadly didn’t work on the walk back. Again there are warning signs about the possibility of salties, and the ranger told us there are 3 freshwater crocodiles living in the waterhole but they’d be fine if we just leave them alone. He said the biggest one was only one metre. Again, only somewhat reassured.
Being in an old-ish caravan with a slightly larger than average family means that lots of darling grey nomads, every day, several times a day, will give us advice, food, magazines, toys and reassuring comments. Archie also made friends with a little boy from Perth, and both boys had a very happy time playing with dirt and trucks, as little boys do.

Days 16-19. Alice Springs-Katherine

We've had a biiiig drive up the middle- around 1300km over 4 days, which for those of you without kids is like 3000km in one day. The kids continue to travel pretty well. We are usually the last to leave a camping ground (and the last to arrive at night), although all three boys are now very helpful with setting up water hoses etc when we arrive somewhere.
The first 40 minutes-ish in the car the three boys spend doing schoolwork- mostly spelling, mental maths and grammar. These things they can do without help. Jessamy has colouring in if she wants, or sometimes she plays with toys. After schoolwork is marked the boys usually read for a bit- Isaac and Darcy are reading the "Tomorrow" series by John Marsden. Arch and Jess will listen to Wiggles or Playschool. When everyone (except Arch and Jess) is sick of Wiggles we listen to Colin Buchanan- we all love his songs- or German songs (my attempt to bilingualise the family) or Adventures in Odyssey CDs- absolutely brilliant 'radio theatre' type CDs. If we are having a particularly long day of driving the kids sometimes take turns on the laptop- we try to keep it educational and haven't yet put on a DVD for them, but we are less than 3 weeks in so who knows!
After leaving Alice Springs we camped next to the Devils Marbles.
For the first time since leaving home it was warm, and light, enough to eat dinner outside. An Aboriginal ranger gave a campfire talk in the evening and explained about the significance of the area to the local Aboriginal people. He also told us some amazing stories of his experiences as a ranger in different NT parks, including a story of how 70 English school kids had to be helicoptered out of Nitmiluk Gorge after being attacked by a wild buffalo. In the morning we took the kids outside to watch the sun rise. The light made the the large boulders look so amazing.
In Tennant Creek, while waiting for fish and chips, Jess and a gorgeous little Aboriginal girl of the same age approached each other. They stared at each other for a while before the Aboriginal girl stroked Jessie's cheek, and then Jess patted her hand. Once they had established that the other was actually just another little girl, they had a lovely game of peek-a-boo. It is so nice to see so many beautiful Aboriginal children around, speaking their own language (and in the case of this little girl, not speaking English).
After Tennant Creek we camped in a rest area, then on to Mataranka Springs- home of the Never Never. By now I am feeling a bit Jeannie Gunn (despite being on an obviously well worn tourist trail) so I bought the book to really get into the outback mood, and am one step away from buying an akubra and a small block of land just so I can recapture this feeling should the need arise in the future. Having said that, the absolute best thing about Mataranka was that we stayed in a real caravan park with hot showers, flushing and relatively unstinky toilets, and washing machines. I was also able to pack away all the winter clothes- yay! This morning we had a swim in the thermal pools, a constant 34 degrees, said goodbye to the friendly wallabies and peacocks, and headed into Katherine to stock up on food. We also tried to buy sandals(there weren't in the shops when we left Newcastle) but couldn't find a shoe shop. Not many people wear shoes here so we might have to turn the children slightly more feral than they already are and let them go barefoot for a bit longer.

Alice Springs- Days 12-15

Our time in Alice Springs has been fairly busy. We have been to the Desert Park where we saw a Black-Breasted Buzzard crack open an emu egg with a rock in its beak. A park ranger took us on a walk where she explained how the different plants survive, and how the Aborigines use some of them for food and medicine.
The kids really enjoyed visiting the School of the Air. It currently has 169 students from preschool to year 8. The area it covers is 1.3 million square kilometres.

Today we drove to Arltunga, 100km east of Alice Springs. 40 km were on a very badly corrugated, unsealed road, so that even Captain Feathersword couldn't be heard as the car was rattling so much. Arltunga was a community of around 300 people in the late 1800s, and again in the 1930s. People would walk 600km from Oodnadatta with a wheelbarrow containing their possessions to search for rubies, and later gold. We hiked to a disused mine that had been used in the 1930s. Notice our t-shirts- thanks Grandma! Now the stone buildings are ruins and almost no one lives there. A beautiful couple, who are gold miners, do still live there and showed us the old battery that still works. It was used to crush quartzite. The miners would then sift through the sand to find the gold flecks. The kids had a go at the sifting and managed to find a little bit of real gold, plus lots of fools' gold.
The highlight for me was definitely the sunset camel trek. Except for a slightly lurchy start and bandy legs afterwards, it was fantastic. We were also able to give the camels their hay after their walk.